Behind the Scenes: Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

Did you send Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree this past holiday season? We saw a couple of famous names (Coldplay, Jillian Michaels) share their versions on Twitter! To take a closer look into the production of this popular video we chatted with Anthony our technical director to see what lengths he went to combining live actors with a computer designed background.

How was working with live actors?

I had a blast working with them! We only had three actors for the day, so we had to get tricky and film the actors from multiple takes and composite those shots together for scenes where there were five people on screen. They were very cooperative and great to work with! By the end of the day, they were exhausted. However, the end result made it all worth it.

Did you run into any problems while shooting?

Not too many, thankfully! We had to come up with some ways for us to imitate some props, but the actors had no problems working with imaginary and real objects. We made a pretty big mess using dry mashed potato mix for fake snow, which didn’t even really work out in the end, ha-ha!

How does the final video come together?

Once the head animation has been finished and the footage has been chroma keyed (process in which the blue screen in the background is removed, leaving only the actor’s), we combine the two with the background images to create the final video. Once all the steps have been approved, we publish the video for our website, and voila! You have a fun Starring You! video to create and share with your friends!

I loved the “Rockin around the Christmas Tree” card. I would love to see more of this type of annimation cards for all of the different occasions like, birthday, anniversary, Easter, Thanksgiving etc. This was by far the best card ever. Thank you for your time and creativity!! I am not a member as yet, but considering it if this quality of card is done for more occasions.

I work for an Australian ad agency. We’ve got a radio client for whom I’d really love to produce something like a JibJab card.. we’re currently working up a campaign all about ‘rock & roll stars’, this would fit perfectly.

Do you guys ever produce custom stuff for ad agencies?? If so I’d love to have a chat.

Hi Claude – Thanks for reaching out, but we do not make custom videos for ad agencies. You can check out this directory for a list of studios that might be able to help: http://coldhardflash.com/directory/. If you have any other questions please email us at help@jibjab.net. Thanks!